2. Marketing: Meaning & Scope
Marketing is a management process
Marketing is about giving customer what they
want and includes identifying and anticipating
customer requirements.
Marketing offers exchange of ideas, goods
and services .
Marketing involves pricing, promotion and
distribution of ideas, goods and services.
3. What is Marketing Communication?
Communication is an essential part of Marketing In fact it is one of the element
of marketing mix i.e., promotion.
Promotion can be broadly understood as “ communication by marketers
that informs, persuades and reminds potential buyers of a product to
influence an opinion or elicit a response.”
4. Prevailing trends of Health Care
Promotion
Advertising
Media Publications
& Promotional Camps
Corporate Association
Word of Mouth (W.O.M)
5. Advertising
A Healthcare advertisement should incorporate five
dimensions of service quality:
• Assurance
• Reliability
• Empathy
• Responsiveness
• Tangibles
6. Media Publication &Promotional Camps
Media Publications
Conducting interviews of specialists on visual media.
Informative and interactive website .
Printing and making readily available various emergency or
appointment numbers are the commonest marketing tools.
Promotional Camps
Both indoor and out-reach programme, play a significant role in
marketing of healthcare institutions.
Continuous medical education
Awareness sessions for general public
Check-up camps for public
Organizing events on various health days
7. Corporate Association
Unlike earlier, now the Corporate prefer a long-term association with the healthcare
institution by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU). Some popular
packages that hospitals offers to the Corporate are:
Preventive Health Check-up
Executive & Master Health Check-up
Advanced Heart Check-up
Whole Body Check-up
Diabetic Check-up
Senior Citizens Health Check-up
Well Women Check-up
Child Health Check-up
8. W.O.M (Word of Mouth)
Word of mouth is more effective than advertising in the field
of health care.
Health care providers, therefore, must make a greater effort
than marketers in other industries to make complaining easy
and acceptable.
Health care organizations should encourage its employees,
their spouse to become involved in community and
neighborhood groups to educate them on what to say when
they get their, in hope that a source of word of mouth
communication is listening.
Word of mouth communication not only increases
awareness and knowledge, but it also persuades and lead to
action, such as actually choosing the provider one has heard
about.
9. Case studies of marketing strategies of
few hospitals
Fortis, Noida
Fortis was the first hospital to organize an exhibition in the National Capital Region,
wherein the general public could visit all departments of the hospital and get
answers from experts. Secondly, Fortis launched a dialysis technician program for
women from the weaker section of society in which they were given free training by
the hospital and they will be assimilated in the hospital itself.
Apart from organsing CMEs almost every week, camps, there’s a special OPD
where consultants charge Rs 100 only. Internally, they have patient co-ordinators,
counsellors, ward in-charge etc to take care of all need of patients. There’s also a
system of taking feedback from patients and visitors.
10. Case studies of marketing strategies of
few hospitals
Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai
The marketing strategy of Jaslok Hospital involves tying up with
corporates, some of them being Oil and Natural Gas Commission
(ONGC), Mumbai Port Trust (MBT), Bhabha Atomic Research
Centre (BARC) and Air India. One of the most effective marketing
tool is a web site (www.jaslokhospital.net), which is constantly
updated by our technical staff. Other marketing strategies involve
that the hospital conducts free health check-ups like diabetes and
cardiac check ups for the general public, inviting foreign faculty and
holding joint symposiums with the foreign delegates to share their
skills, knowledge and experience. The hospital has a tie up with
Stanford University Medical Centre, US and they hold video
conferencing every month with the doctors of the centre, who
interact with the faculty of Jaslok hospital.
11. Case studies of marketing strategies of
few hospitals
Apollo Hospital, Chennai
Apollo hospital, Chennai has chosen a different approach to communicate their
message to the target customers. They interact with doctors on one on one
basis. Regularly conduct seminars and continual education programmes to
explain to doctors the advances in the medical sciences and the infrastructure
that their hospital has.
To reach the consumers, they rely mostly on public relations. Whenever their
doctors perform pioneering surgeries or winning awards for their achievements,
they talk and publish it to media. They also presents various health programmes
to the corporates who form a significant chunk of their customer base.